Success with Meta Tags – Here’s my proven 5 Step Plan

The popular view is that web site meta tags don’t help with SEO anymore

But I’ve found plenty of evidence to the contrary and have outlined below a quick 5 step plan for success

Just because something’s fallen out of favour doesn’t mean it still won’t work. More than anything this applies to meta tags, as the ongoing refocus at Google leads many people to not even consider them when creating or editing web pages. But there’s still plenty of evidence (Google still admit to using the title and description tags as ranking factors) to show they can help with getting a site well placed on Google and often a little time spent on them can make a big difference.

Search engine links are from the title tag

For instance when you use a search engine the links to each result will be based on the meta title tag, and the description under the link will often be based on the meta description tag (if that had been edited in the first place). So a little time spent editing and improving the meta tags on your website can be time well spent, especially if you have the time to do quite a few of the pages, as the more done the more they can help with Google.

Here’s my 5 step plan to help get the best from your website meta tags

1. Make sure you know how to edit them! It still surprises me when I’m running training classes how many people don’t know where, in their website’s content management system they can edit the meta tags.

2. Keep things simple when writing them. The aim of the tags is to try and induce people to click on your results on the search results page (because that’s where they can appear) rather than your competitor’s. So keep them simple and to the point.

3. Write them like an ad. As mentioned the title and description tag can appear on the search engine results page, and your aim is to entice people to click on your link over your competitors that will be there as well. I’ve found if you can write them like an ad, with a hook and call to action, then that increases the visitors coming through.

4. Don’t make them too long. A common mistake is to make the meta tags too long, as the search engine will truncate them, and then may not use them. The title tag needs to be no more than 11 words and the description tag no more than 25 words.

5. Review them every so often. Even after you’ve edited the meta tags it’s always worth reviewing them now and then. This simply involves running some keyword searches in the search engines to find your pages, then note whether your edited meta tags are appearing in the results. If they’re not, (the search engine may be using a snippet from the page) then it may be worth having another go at editing and improving them.

Free Meta Tag Audit

Are your website’s meta tags helping or hindering it in the search engines? Our Free Meta Tags Audit will help you find out. Get yours today at: www.reallysimpleseo.com/meta-tags-audit (limited offer).

Comments

Success with Meta Tags – Here’s my proven 5 Step Plan — 2 Comments

I have not seen any evidence to suggest that meta tags are now defunct. On the contrary, all the sites I’ve worked on are still ranking high due to my hard work incorporating meta. If you went through every infographic, tweet and post about the subject you’d be none the wiser.

Thanks for the comment. I’m 100 per cent in agreement with you. Many people seem to have the opinion that meta tags offer little value these days, but in my experience working with clients and my own site, the opposite seems to be the case, spending time on editing and improving meta tags offers real benefit in improving rankings and visitors numbers.

Categories

Categories

FREE DOWNLOAD TODAYLatest SEO Tips Guides & Tutorials. Forty two of the latest game-changing SEO Tips, Guides and Tutorials written up into this easy to understand eBook. The focus is on simple projects any web site owner can complete that take the least time, but make the biggest difference to how well the site does in the search engines. Enter your email address in the box below to download or learn more.